Quinn Hughes is having a Hart caliber season

Yes without Hughes in the lineup. Their goalies have been the mvp’s.

Yea that .895 team save percentage is killing it.

Lankinen has been mostly good, but Demko and Silovs were terrible until Demko’s last couple games. Goaltending has been a big reason they’ve been winning without Hughes, but it hasn’t been consistent or close to as valuable as Hughes overall on the year, and they’ve lost a fair amount of games due to poor goaltending.
 
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Yea that .895 team save percentage is killing it.

Lankinen has been mostly good, but Demko and Silovs were terrible until Demko’s last couple games. Goaltending has been a big reason they’ve been winning without Hughes, but it hasn’t been consistent or close to as valuable as Hughes overall on the year, and they’ve lost a fair amount of games due to poor goaltending.
Yes not saying that, Hughes has been great but they’ve won a lot of games on the backs of some great goalie performances
 
Quinn Hughes is the captain of his team, and it is falling apart from within. Major, major downvotes for that.
Did you watch the NHL Faceoff documentary? He's extremely soft spoken, no idea who thought he'd make a good captain. However, the Hart vote has nothing to do with intangibles, he's just so much better at hockey than anyone else on that team.

Say it after me.

Hughes is one of the two best defensemen this year.

There should be no debate to this statement.
You're selling Werenski short
 
This is a long ass post for not having read the actual TOI post I had on the next page showing that the TOI against Edmonton this year Hughes has been on the ice mostly with Edmonton’s 3rd line while Makar (and after checking Werenski too) have been on primarily against McDavid and Draisaitl.

I get you’re trying to say that Colorado can match Edmonton’s firepower. But that doesn’t explain why someone touted as defensively spectacularly good on defense as Hughes isn’t being sent out in that contain package against McDavid or Drai.

It’s considerably the same against all top players in the league. There is a reason Colorado dismantled Edmonton in their cap run and it was Makar’s ability to defensively shut down top players in this league. I’m not saying Hughes is bad or anything. But maybe we can turn down the Hart talk a bit.
There was a number of things being said. I was bringing up TOI because the charts being shown was kind of a general usage display that didn't take that into account, and words like "sheltered" were being thrown around. Sheltered is for your bottom pairing guys that you worry who their out against and limit their ice time. Suggesting anything like that for a guy playing 25+ minutes a game is absurd, and if there's discrepancies with 2nd pairing guys against other teams top lines that's just a matter of team makeup and strategy.

Like theoretically, if you could swap handedness and switch Hughes/Makar on the Avs/Canucks, do you really think deployment against McDavid in this case would change for either teams? That the Avs coach would go 'McDavid is on the ice and we only have Toews-Hughes now, better send out Girard-Manson'?
 
There was a number of things being said. I was bringing up TOI because the charts being shown was kind of a general usage display that didn't take that into account, and words like "sheltered" were being thrown around. Sheltered is for your bottom pairing guys that you worry who their out against and limit their ice time. Suggesting anything like that for a guy playing 25+ minutes a game is absurd, and if there's discrepancies with 2nd pairing guys against other teams top lines that's just a matter of team makeup and strategy.

Like theoretically, if you could swap handedness and switch Hughes/Makar on the Avs/Canucks, do you really think deployment against McDavid in this case would change for either teams? That the Avs coach would go 'McDavid is on the ice and we only have Toews-Hughes now, better send out Girard-Manson'?
Not sure what you are saying. When you play 25 min and only 9 are against McDavid or Draisaitl, that looks like sheltered.
 
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Try again. Elite defenseman kill penalties.
Once again, why would anyone want to waste a guy who plays like Hughes to eat shots and risk injury when any old defenseman can do it? Especially adding to the fact that he already has pre-existing injuries that could be aggravated?
Also, I saw Makar's PK numbers. Ouch. Just being thrown out there doesn't mean he's actually performing. Can't comment on Werenski, although no denying he's been incredible all year and definitely in the running.
 
Say it after me.

Hughes is one of the two best defensemen this year.

There should be no debate to this statement.
Hughes and Bouchard are two hybrid offensive only players who line up behind three forwards. We dont have another name for this position so we default to "defenseman", but very little to no defense is actually played by these players. Is there value in them? Absolutely, but to claim they are elite at actual defense is insulting to their peers who are killing penalties and take the tough matchups sacrificing their offensive numbers for the betterment of the team.
 
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Once again, why would anyone want to waste a guy who plays like Hughes to eat shots and risk injury when any old defenseman can do it? Especially adding to the fact that he already has pre-existing injuries that could be aggravated?
Also, I saw Makar's PK numbers. Ouch. Just being thrown out there doesn't mean he's actually performing. Can't comment on Werenski, although no denying he's been incredible all year and definitely in the running.
That’s how you learn to play on the pk. You may not be great right away but you will become good at it. All the goats played on the pk. Bourque, Pronger, Lidstrom, Orr…. Etc
Also Makars numbers have increased since wh have a competent goalie.
 
Once again, why would anyone want to waste a guy who plays like Hughes to eat shots and risk injury when any old defenseman can do it? Especially adding to the fact that he already has pre-existing injuries that could be aggravated?
Also, I saw Makar's PK numbers. Ouch. Just being thrown out there doesn't mean he's actually performing. Can't comment on Werenski, although no denying he's been incredible all year and definitely in the running.
Literally every team does it except for Edmonton, Las Vegas, and Vancouver. Did they magically create a new way of using defensemen most efficiently that will reinvent the game? Or do they recognize their weaknesses and put them in other scenarios where they are likely to succeed?
 
I would be shocked if the Norris votes ends up not being a 2 horse race.

I wouldn’t. On top of how good Werenski’s been, the writers love a good story and if Columbus makes the playoffs after the Gaudreau tragedy with him continuing to produce like he had, he’ll get a lot of votes.
 
Hughes and Bouchard are two hybrid offensive only players who line up behind three forwards. We dont have another name for this position so we default to "defenseman", but very little to no defense is actually played by these players. Is there value in them? Absolutely, but to claim they are elite at actual defense is insulting to their peers who are killing penalties and take the tough matchups sacrificing their offensive numbers for the betterment of the team.

This is absolute nonsense. You repeatedly make huge, unsupported logical leaps and try to justify it based on “data”. Playing easier minutes than some other number 1 defensemen doesnt tell us anything other than he plays easier minutes than some other number 1 defensemen. This does not mean someone isn’t playing defense nor that they play the position in a way that is fundamentally different than other defensemen.
 
This is absolute nonsense. You repeatedly make huge, unsupported logical leaps and try to justify it based on “data”. Playing easier minutes than some other number 1 defensemen doesnt tell us anything other than he plays easier minutes than some other number 1 defensemen. This does not mean someone isn’t playing defense nor that they play the position in a way that is fundamentally different than other defensemen.
There quite literally is the data showing he is in the offensive zone more often because of it. How much defense is he playing there?
 
There quite literally is the data showing he is in the offensive zone more often because of it. How much defense is he playing there?

Even the best possession players who receive high zone starts still end up in their own zone roughly 40% of the time. If Hughes was in the offensive zone 100% of the time, even with his minutes, he’d be the best player of all time
 
Even the best possession players who receive high zone starts still end up in their own zone roughly 40% of the time. If Hughes was in the offensive zone 100% of the time, even with his minutes, he’d be the best player of all time
Wait a minute….. I thought he was.
 
Even the best possession players who receive high zone starts still end up in their own zone roughly 40% of the time. If Hughes was in the offensive zone 100% of the time, even with his minutes, he’d be the best player of all time
I totally agree. All 1D get the most O zone starts. The difference with Quinn is:

1. No PK
2. D Zone starts only with Miller or Petey. They purposefully avoided the 3rd-4th lines in their own zone with Quinn.
3. Increased O Zone starts year after year with 3rd-4h liners since 21-22 with D Zone starts decreasing there.

He is a hybrid better version of Bouchard IMO. Highly skilled, but to claim amazing defense is simply a joke now.
 

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